


Better Off Without Me?

by nyanbacon



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018)
Genre: Angst, Basically, Brotherly Love, Donnie cheers him up, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Mikey feels insignificant, Other Characters Are Mentioned, self doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 07:31:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15576873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyanbacon/pseuds/nyanbacon
Summary: After the incident with Repo Mantis, Mikey is plagued by thoughts that he isn't good enough to be on the team. Donnie, worried, goes looking for him to help talk him out of the rut he's dug himself into.





	Better Off Without Me?

Mikey sat on the edge of a building overlooking Repo Mantis’s scrapyard. The sun was just starting to turn the sky a slight hint of gray, signifying Mikey had been out all night, and it was about time he should start heading back, lest one of his brothers come looking for him. He stared at the scrapyard glumly, clasping his hands in his lap. Ever since their confrontation with Repo, the scrapyard had been void of activity, save for Donnie’s more frequent visits to the yard, and the occasional gang coming to the yard to fight out their differences. Mikey couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to the yard when someone realized no one was taking care of it anymore.

Regardless, staring at the yard made his thoughts circle back to what exactly had happened involving the yard. Everything that had happened that day just felt like a painful reminder that Mikey was…

Completely and totally useless. 

The thought always pierced his heart in a way nothing had (except those occasional jabs from Splinter, but that was just a tough love thing, right…?) And it seemed the more he came to this conclusion, the more he thought it to be true.

He just couldn’t get the idea out of his head. Donnie had gotten annoyed at him for not paying attention when the car was falling (although that was partially Donnie’s fault too, wasn’t it?), and then he couldn’t do the one thing that the mission had called for. 

He let out a shaky sigh and pulled his legs up to sit cross legged on the building’s edge. Trying to talk himself out of the circle of thoughts was the hardest part, but he just… couldn’t. He’d created more hassle for Donnie than he’d meant to, simply because he didn’t have what it took to do what needed to be done.

He wondered if this would start leaking into his interactions with the rest of his brothers. Would they start realizing he couldn’t hold up his end of the team? That it would be easier if they just dropped him and went to do things themselves? It sure seemed like that was the logical solution to him…

“There you are.”

He jumped and subtly wiped tears from his eyes as he turned to look at who had called him. Donnie landed on the building silently as he leapt down from a taller neighboring building. He wasn’t carrying his staff, which meant he wasn’t planning on looking for or running into trouble.

Mikey frowned a bit. “Why’re you here?”

Donnie strode over, mirroring his frown at the question. “Why do you think? You’ve been gone all night, Mikey.” He sat down on the edge of the building next to him, looking out at the scrapyard. “Why do you think I’m here?”

“Oh.” Mikey looked down at the mostly empty street below them- save for a few stray animals and a homeless guy- and rubbed his arm. “Are the others mad?”

“What?” Donnie looked at him incredulously, and Mikey refused to meet his gaze. “No, they’re just worried.” His frown deepened and he looked somewhat confused. “Why would they be mad…?” He breathed, as if trying to figure out the answer to the question by asking himself.

“Don,” Mikey started, looking back at the yard as he cut Donnie’s thoughts short.

“Hm?”

“Do you think the team would be better off if I didn’t come fight with you guys?”

“What?” His tone was a mixture between alarmed and disbelieving, and Mikey shifted a bit uncomfortably, still avoiding eye contact.

“It’s just… I haven’t really done anything helpful when we were doing all the… ‘crime fighting’ stuff. And the one time I did try to do something-” He gestured to the yard. “-the task ended up being harder than it needed to be because I…” His voice died in his throat and he couldn’t finish the sentence. He still felt being nice had been the right thing, but there was something about that whole ordeal that made it hard to talk about. 

“Mikey…” Donnie’s voice was laced with his concern, and he couldn’t take his eyes off Mikey’s hunched figure. “What in the world makes you think that you’re not useful to the team?”

“I don’t…” His voice cracked and he quickly folded in on himself, wrapping his arms around his stomach and not answering. 

He jumped when Donnie placed a hand on his shell and he glanced at him.

“You’re not useless, Mikey.”

“But-”

“Hey, let me finish.”

Mikey clamped his mouth shut and looked down. 

“You were the only one who figured out how to open that gate at the construction site, remember? If it weren’t for you, we might not have been able to save April.”

“You guys could’ve figured it out eventually…” He mumbled.

“Yeah? And what could’ve happened in that time?”

Mikey didn’t answer.

“And what about with Hypno-Potamus?”

“That was stupid,” Mikey muttered.

“Still important.”

He shifted. 

“You’re a vital part of this team, Mike. Without you, we couldn’t have-”

“Yeah, but how am I supposed to fight crime if I wanna take pity on anything that moves?!” Mikey suddenly cried, burying his face in his hands.

Donnie hesitated. “Oh, you’re worried about what happened with-”

“It was supposed to be simple!” Mikey sounded angry, but they both knew he was just frustrated with himself. “Get in, get the RV, and get out. But I made it so… so much more complicated than it needed to be! And it was more time consuming, and I just-”

“I think you made right the decision.”

Mikey was cut off mid-rant, and he looked at Donnie with wide, wet eyes. “What?”

Donnie looked at him sympathetically. “I think you made the right decision. He was a good person-”

“Mutant.”

“Whatever. He had good intentions. It wouldn’t have been right to just leave him in the dark like I had planned.”

Mikey sniffed and wiped his eyes on his forearm again. “Really?”

“Yeah. Honestly…” Donnie rubbed the back of his neck, glancing away. “I’ve been feeling kinda guilty for trying to make you go tough on the guy. It wasn't something you could pull off, and you wouldn't have liked doing it anyway-"

Mikey let out a short breath and quickly hugged Donnie. The taller blinked, seeming taken aback, before draping his arm across Mikey’s back.

“Thanks, bro.”

Donnie smiled. “No problem, Mike.”

After a moment Mikey pulled away and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes, sighing and then sniffling. Donnie watched, still a bit worried, but not as much as he was before he came looking for the youngest.

“We should probably get back before Raph and Leo  _ do  _ get mad,” the purple-banded turtle finally said, glancing at the scrapyard.

Mikey let out a chuckle and stood up. “Yeah, fair point.”

The two quickly slipped into the sewers before the sky could be tinted pink with the sun’s rays. 


End file.
